Week Notes // 20th November
Reading, watching, listening (the things I’ve found interesting this week)
Really enjoyed the Russell Davies interview as part of Adam Morgan’s Let’s Make This More Interesting series. It provides a nod back to the origins of my own Week Notes project. In parallel been slightly obsessed with the world of Teenage Engineering and the obvious Rams inspiration. They talk about ‘removing friction… or, how to remove the steps from thought to action’ - a really good thought/instruction/objective to live by.
Finishing Klara and The Sun.
Discovered Origin Story. Devoured the Jordan Peterson episodes.
Finished the week by reading a story about a hedge fund guy-turned-deep sea salvage guy. Bond Villain vibes.
Thinking and Doing (what have I been thinking about, who did I meet, where have I been)
Met Neil for breakfast. Talked about ‘new media models’. Seems to be a question concerning lots of people at the moment. I have often used the imagery of Morpheus offering Neo the red or blue pill to describe the situation. Historically, we’ve been able to offer two legitimate choices or world views. TV has been incredibly resilient. Increasingly, doesn’t feel like that is true. Need to do more research.
Wrote a blog post on ‘Media as Performance’ following my week note last week. Provoked some discussion and new conversations. Had to re-read several times as people seemed to infer a great deal of meaning from the words. Meaning which might not actually be represented on the page. The use of Gen AI (or just CGI) in advertising clearly a live and loaded issue.
Working (new projects, reflections on work this week, look ahead to next week)
Thanksgiving this week. For anyone working regularly with people in the US, it’s always amazing how quiet things are.
Pitch assignment taking up significant portion of time this week. Deadline fast approaching. Spent time with market teams to review their work and help them shape their stories. I also spent time with the client leads to develop the overrarching narrative for the pitch story. A reminder that exercises like this blog all make writing the work alot easier and quicker. Compound interest in action.
Also finding more and more opportunity to recycle, repurpose and redeploy the work I’ve created here. I’m very open about my desire to ‘think aloud’. And often, even when I’ve got the words down on paper, I still feel my thinking isn’t 100% complete. Having a series of ‘starter templates’ for discussion very useful.
Next week will be the crunch week for pitch and content will have to be briefed to design, finalised, rehearsed etc ahead of the final meeting the week after. Hoping then that things will quieten down for Christmas. Have annual leave to use.
